Exam 15: Multivariate and Advanced Quantitative Methods

Zeynep hypothesizes that sleep quality predicts weight gain and wants to be as sure as possible that any association she observes is consistent with her hypothesis.To do this,Zeynep should

Consider the results of a study that suggest more frequent marijuana use is associated with a higher number of hours of TV viewing.If the study tests whether both the frequency of marijuana use and the number of hours of TV viewing are predicted by whether respondents are employed,the study has tested whether employment

Faye's dissertation research will focus on how the hiring of new employees may influence the productivity of those already employed by the firm or company.If she chooses to test for the importance of job satisfaction after the hiring cycle,she is hypothesizing that

Michelle is conducting research for her dissertation on whether birth order has an influence on how well high-school students perform on standardized tests.She has hypothesized that firstborn will perform better on average and has a long list of control variables she will test to make her study more informative.When Michelle tests for the main association between birth order and test scores,she finds a statistically significant relationship,but it is very small in magnitude.Her adviser suggests that she choose a different topic because

A preliminary study shows an association between conservative attitudes and a higher likelihood of having a degenerative condition,such as heart disease or high blood pressure.The researcher decides to perform a simple elaboration of the association by running cross-tabulations of the attitudes-degenerative conditions link separately for those who are under the age of 50 and those who are 50 years of age or older.The reason the researcher does this is that

Frederick is studying employees in a large firm to assess whether length of employment with that firm differs between professional employees and service employees.Further,he tests the possibility that occupation type might affect employment duration indirectly through job commitment.He uses an existing survey that asks the respondents their job title,their length of time with the firm,and one item that asks,"Overall,how committed are you to this job?" The problem of incorrectly measured differences would occur if

A research team is testing whether mothers' mental health is predicted by their own ratings of their parenting quality,and finds that mothers who have a more positive perception of their parenting report fewer depressive symptoms.However,they also find that employed mothers have lower parenting ratings and lower reported depressive symptoms.In this example,mothers' employment is a possible ________ variable.

Consider the relationship between impulsivity,social isolation,and mental health,and consider the three following potential ways to study these associations.In one hypothetical study,a researcher considers whether impulsivity predicts poorer mental health,but only at high levels of social isolation.In a second study,a researcher tests whether social isolation explains why impulsivity predicts poorer mental health.In a third study,a researcher tests whether social isolation predicts both impulsivity and poorer mental health.Consider how social isolation is being modeled in each of these studies,and choose the correct description from the options below.The first study models social isolation as a ________;the second study models social isolation as a ________;and the third models social isolation as a ________.

Bohai and Adal have administered a survey to a sample of college students to study the association between type of high school attended (public versus private)and social adjustment in college.They also considered the importance of students' socioeconomic background because that could affect the high school-college adjustment association.When all three variables are in the statistical model,the researchers observe a moderately larger adjustment score for students who attended public high schools,with a p-value of 0.03.These results tells Bohai and Adal that

A team of researchers is studying the possible effect of parents taking child-rearing classes on children's behavioral well-being.When they test the relevant null hypothesis,they are assessing whether

Biyu wants to know whether parental divorce predicts lower social adjustment for middle schoolers.She thinks divorce will influence adjustment indirectly through a decrease in interpersonal skills among children in divorced families.She also hypothesizes that the influence of parental divorce on school adjustment will be stronger for boys than for girls.To test for moderation in her hypotheses,Biyu should test whether

Bianca is reviewing the research literature on marriage and health and learns that marriage is predictive of better health outcomes on a wide range of health measures.The possibility that healthier people are more likely to get married and stay married would illustrate the important potential for ________ in this area of study.

A city government has asked a research group to evaluate the effect of a new curfew ordinance on the number of monthly crimes.This curfew has reduced city revenue due to decreased commerce,and citizens are generally unhappy with it.While the curfew has already been instated,the city wants to use this study to decide whether to continue or discontinue the curfew.After six months,the study finds a statistically significant difference in the number of monthly crimes before and after the curfew was instated,but observes that the average number of monthly crimes over the six months only went down by 1.2 crimes with the curfew in place.When the researchers make their recommendation to the city based on this study,they should most likely recommend that the

Sean is studying a group of female high schoolers to test the relationship between changing schools during high school and adolescents' grades.Once he confirms that changing schools is associated with lower grades on average,he decides to include a measure of the resources in both the old and new schools to see if it interacts with the effect of moving schools on grades.Sean has decided to analyze the data in this way because he wants to test whether

Paloma has conducted a study on whether religious attendance is related to attitudes about legal gun control,using a nationally representative sample of 145 adults.She is surprised to find no association between the two variables.If there is actually a small correlation between religious attendance and gun control attitudes,one factor that is likely to have affected Paloma's findings is that

The chance that at least some p-values will be lower than 0.05 increases when

Sarah is developing her study of the effects of neighborhood poverty and household poverty,which takes into account how children's psychological strain might explain how poverty predicts more risk behaviors,like smoking and drinking.In this example,the control variable is

A researcher observes an association between hours spent at work and the risk of divorce.She controls for personal distress,thinking distress might explain why work hours would cause divorce.To assess this,the researcher will look for a change in the relationship between work hours and divorce once distress is added to the regression model.This is different from testing for a confounding variable because a test for confounding variables is conducted to determine if the association between the independent and dependent variables

The reason a moderating effect is also called an interaction effect is because

A study finds a statistically significant association between divorce status and family attitudes,such that divorced people have more unconventional attitudes about family life.Which of the following would provide evidence of the statistical significance of this association?